Lux Sanguinem
by Dom186
Summary: In which Sookie Stackhouse, a perfectly respectable young woman by all outward appearance from the township of Bontemps , gets married, gets killed and gets turned into a hybrid Fae/Vampire by a creature who has been waiting for his young fae of royal lineage for a long, long time. And in which she returns home 150 years later and meets the local undead population.


Hello readers.

New story about yet another show that I found digging into my hard drive and polished a bit. Meant as a full-length story and may become one.

Disclaimer: Don't own nothing.

§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§

_Bon Temps, Louisiana._

_The 14th of May, year of our Lord, 1856_.

_Bon Temps, Louisiana._

_14__th__ of May, 1856._

Everyone in town was in agreement about the fact that Sookie Stackhouse was a peculiar young woman. Though no one could say precisely what it was that was so strange about her, it was still a mutually agreed opinion in the township of Bon Temps, like Terrence Bellefleur being a coward or George Heinsley drinking too much.

Perhaps it was because nobody ever remembered her getting sick a day in her life, even that time when all the children had eaten a bad batch of eggs and were all abed for days, little Sookie had been the only one not stricken down.

Perhaps it was because she had always been a little faster and a little stronger than the other children, always came first in the races, never skipped a step in jumping ropes, could climb a tree higher than the boys.

Perhaps it was because she could often be seen wandering in and out of the woods at all hours of the day or night, sometimes barefoot even. And how she always came back out looking as lovely as ever, as if the forest itself refused to sully her.

Perhaps it was how even the meanest of attack dogs turned into puppies starved for attention rather than flesh when around her, or how she'd been observed whistling happily in a field one day, a flock of starlings above her twisting and dancing in hypnotic patterns as if they were following the melody and the instructions of a musical director.

Or maybe it was the way she just _knew_ things, like when she had heard little Mary Shepley crying out for help when she got lost even though everyone knew the little girl was mute, or that time she'd warned the Sheriff out of nowhere that the group of drifters that had come to town were fixin' to rob the Compton plantation. Or the literally _dozens _of other instances people remembered of the girl being a little _too_ right _too_ often for it to be a mere coincidence. The result was that very few people were able to look her in the eye for more than few seconds without turning away, always left feeling exposed and ashamed though they had no idea why.

It wasn't as if the girl made a spectacle of her "oddities", quite the opposite actually, and it wasn't that the girl was _bad_ in the way young women sometimes are. She attended church every Sunday with her family, didn't run around with boys, didn't drink, treated her elders with respect and was unfailingly kind and polite, even to those that respectable society deemed beneath her. But despite all of that, Sookie Stackhouse had always made the good god-fearing folk of Bon Temps a bit uneasy.

It was the reason, the ladies gossiped, why at age the age of twenty-two, she was still unmarried and well on her way to becoming an old maid (most of them had already given birth twice by her age after all).

Not that she looked it, with her sun-kissed hair, heart-shaped face, generous curves and healthy tan; she appeared the vision of a true Southern Belle. And, despite her rather reserved nature, her natural glow invariably ended up drawing every eye towards her whenever she entered a room. Her otherworldly, and completely effortless, beauty that had enthralled men and enraged women since she was just a young girl was yet another item on the list of things that set her apart from her peers.

It had certainly attracted more than one suitor to her door however, often of a far higher social standing than herself.

Indeed, despite her family's relative lack of wealth and true social standing (the Stackhouses lived well enough and were respected masons, which was agreed to be a good and honest profession, but hardly aristocracy) all manner of travelling young gentlemen that had been instantly captivated by her ethereal beauty after just a glance, had tried their luck at gaining her hand. Not a single one of them had ever made it past the initial arranged meeting.

A few went home with polite refusals, while others were seen running out of the house white as ghosts and categorically refused to discuss anything that was said in the meeting with the exception of a few scared mutterings about secrets and witches before getting back on their horse and vowing never to return.

Yes, Sookie Stackhouse was most certainly _peculiar_.

None of those things seemed to be troubling the young woman as she woke up on this ordinary morning on this ordinary day.

Except this was not an ordinary day in the life of Sookie Stackhouse, today was the day she died.

Coincidently, it was also the day she got married… the two events would later be considered related.

This was going to be a good day thought Sookie as she opened the blinds to her room and noticed the sun already shining bright, not a cloud in the sky. There was a good _energy_ to the air, she could feel it.

She quickly proceeded with her morning ablutions, got dressed in a simple white cotton summer dress, daringly without a hat, and went downstairs to start her chores.

She found her mother in the kitchen, her back turned to her as she churned butter over a massive wooden bowl while humming a soft tune, the blonde hair she'd passed on to both her children swaying in the breeze from the window.

"Mornin' mama" she chimed while kissing her mother on the cheek and snatching an apple from the counter.

"Good morning sunshine, did you sleep well?"

"I did actually, I had this wonderful dream where I was dancing around a pool in this lovely garden, and there were all these lights and all these beautiful people were dancing all around me"

A quick fleeting memory went through her mother at her words, like the echo of an ethereal dream long forgotten. It lasted less than the fraction of a second but Sookie knew what it was. Those particular memories of her mother's that she'd catch sometimes always brought a bittersweet feeling in her daughter.

"Well, that does sound wonderful, but no dancing for you this morning missy. Eat your breakfast and then go feed the chickens, and don't dilly-dally, we have lots to do today". _And it's not like I'm going to get any help from my fool of a husband._

"Dad and Jed aren't up yet?" Asked Sookie.

"Your brother wasn't in his room, he probably spent the night with that no-good floozy again, that boy really needs to grow up. And your father…will be home soon" _Probably passed out in the gutter again, that drunk._

Sookie felt a well of frustration at her father's semi-constant drunkenness and the toll it took on her mother to keep it all together.

Finished with her breakfast, she put away the cutlery and gave her mother a long hug from behind, resting her head on her shoulder and sending thoughts of love to her mom while listening to hers in return.

Mother and daughter stayed that way for a moment. It was a quiet ritual they had done since Sookie was a baby, and neither of them knew it, but this would be the last time they ever did.

"I'll tend to the chickens, and I'll put out the linens while I'm at it. Don't worry momma, this'll be a good day I promise" she finally said, kissing her mother on the cheek again before skipping out the back door towards the barn and chicken coops.

She waved to old Mister Compton as he rode by on his beautiful white mare from his big house on the plantation while on his way into town and got on with her morning chores.

§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§

It was nearly an hour later that she was done with her morning routine and already a fine sheet of sweat had formed on her brow.

As she was putting her tools away in the barn, she tripped over something, something that woke up screaming at being stepped on and sent the both of them sprawling to the ground.

That something happened to be her best friend since childhood, Winnie Mae.

Winnie was like her, an _oddity_.

She, like her mother known only as Mae, were slaves up at the Compton plantation. Winnie wasn't like most slaves though; she could read, write, do algebra far better than her and spoke three languages. Sookie was always in awe of her friend's intellect and saddened by the fact that the young woman with the beautiful cocoa skin would always have to hide it. Sookie had been the one to teach her how to read and write in the first place and continued sharing everything she was taught in every subject, teaching her friend at the same time as she was being taught herself at school when they were kids. The school that refused to let Winnie even step inside it because of her skin color. Which Sookie thought was the most idiotic thing in the world since her friend had proven very quickly to be an extraordinary student, she would have been first in the class, even the one for the boys she thought, if only she'd been allowed to attend. It had started with the blonde teaching the brunette but over the years, the dynamic had switched so that most of the time it was Winnie teaching _her _and helping her when she struggled with homework.

She had certainly gone _way_ past Sookie in her studies and insatiable quest for knowledge by now. Winnie had been sneaking books from the main house library of the Compton plantation where she lived (only in the slave quarters of course) since she was but eight; and Sookie herself had done her best to supply her knowledge-starved best friend with as much material as she could get her hands on. Everyone in town was convinced that she spent all of her time reading with as many books as she checked out of the small town library or borrowed from anyone that had some.

But Winnie was also more than that; like her blonde best friend, Winnie was _special_, she had _power_. Power passed down through her bloodline all the way from the old voodoo conjurers of Africa; or so said her mother anyway. Power that allowed her to do and sense things that most people never would. Like Sookie, she _knew_ that there was more to this world than what was taught in Sunday-school, that singular knowledge and perspective had bonded the two girls tighter than sisters since they were children.

"What the heck! Winnie?!"

"Dang it Sook! I was sleeping!"

"Yes! In the barn! What in God's name are you doing here?"

"Sorry Sook, I just had to get out of _there_, you know how it is…"

"I do. But why didn't you come to my window like always? Surely sleeping in my room has to be better than sleeping next to horse manure"

"I didn't want to risk it after your father found me last time, I told you that"

"And I told you that you should never listen to anything that old drunk says, besides he didn't even come home from the tavern last night so you could have had a good night's sleep. I hope you'll remember that the next time you decide to be all noble…"

"Yeah, yeah, I get the point, I'll be sure to wake you up at two in the morning to push you out of bed the next time…"

"Thank you, that's all I ask" replied Sookie with a tongue-in-cheek smile.

A few moments afterwards, both girls burst out laughing.

Sookie was the first to regain control and ran a critical eye over her friend.

"But, seriously, you're okay? Nothing too bad?"

"Nah, don't worry Sook. Just old Mrs. Compton getting up on her high horse like always. And my mom acting…weird…er"

"Weird how?"

"Well, last night was the beginning of a very special planetary alignment according to her, it lasts for three days and it's a big deal. I remembered something about it in that astronomy book you got for me. Only of course, she called the planets "gods" or "celestial spheres" or some other gibberish. I swear, I keep trying to explain the books I read to her and she just says its "white people nonsense", won't even _try _to learn to read…"

"Ok…well I didn't know about that "planetary alignment" thing either, and seriously Winnie, you can't just expect her to understand this stuff. _I _barely even get it and I can actually hear you thinking it _right now_. Not everyone is as clever as you; actually, I don't think I know _anyone _that's as clever as you and I would know, so maybe…you should cut her a bit of slack?"

The young black girl shuffled her feet and rubbed her frizzy hair. Always uncomfortable with compliments, seeing as she received so very few in her position, but as always, filled with love and gratitude for her best friend.

Winnie didn't have time to say a tearful thank you as the blonde had her arms wrapped around her before she even opened her mouth and whispered "You're welcome" in her shoulder.

Her _mind-reading_ best friend.

"So what's the big deal about this alignment then? Why has that got her acting weird?" asked Sookie after she'd stepped back.

"Well, she used it to do some…_stuff_, you know. Apparently, it can be used to boost your power or make connections you wouldn't otherwise be able to make, something like that, she didn't really explain."

_Magic_, thought Sookie as her best friend spoke. How exciting and beautiful and dangerous. She loved hearing her friend talk about her mother and what the woman taught her daughter in hushed tones in the dead of night. She talked of communing with spirits and Gods that were definitely not in the Bible, she talked of an energy connecting all things and how, if you knew how, you could see, touch and feel that energy. And if you were _really_ good, you could _use _it.

She idly wondered if that energy or tension she'd felt in the air since the moment she woke up had to do with this alignment. It wouldn't surprise her.

Winnie couldn't actually _do_ all that much yet, as she so often lamented. Despite her mother telling her once, in a rare showing of maternal pride from the strict and severe woman, that she was actually uncommonly powerful for her age. Still, she couldn't start a fire with her mind, make herself so unnoticeable as to be all but invisible, manipulate the elements; all things that her mother could do a bit of but that apparently her forefathers masters at and much more besides.

But Sookie had seen her friend slide a glass across a table just by looking at it or make a plant grow in a single night just because she had incanted a prayer and added a drop of her blood when she planted it. And she _could_ in fact, start a fire with her mind. Only it was a tiny candle and it took her half an hour of staring at it in intense concentration. This frustrated her best friend to no end but Sookie thought that was good, it used to take her _three hours_. She also reminded her that most people could stare at a candle for the rest of their natural life and _never_ produce a flame.

And, like her own telepathy (unfortunately), her friend's powers were only growing stronger as she got older.

"Wow, so she did like…a spell, or a ritual?" she asked her friend excitedly.

"Yeah, she did, but…I don't think it went well. She didn't tell me what she did, wouldn't even show me, but I think she was trying to communicate with a spirit, maybe an ancestor, I don't know, she sent me out of the room. But when I got back in, she was…scared, terrified, I'd never seen her like that. I begged her to tell me what she saw but she wouldn't and then she got really angry with me and I don't even know why! She kept saying I should be training my powers more, that there were dangerous things out there and then she…well, never mind that. We just got into this huge fight, it was so loud that we actually broke the silencing ward she had set up and people heard us. After that I just ran. I _did _think about coming to your room, but I figured you'd be sleeping so…"

"I can't understand how someone so clever can be so stupid sometimes, I don't _care_ if you wake me up, in fact I care that you didn't. I want to be there for you if you need me okay? Just like you were always there for me when I had to hide from everyone because they were just so _loud_ all the time and all the other kids thought I was a freak. That's what best friends are for" the blonde told her sincerely before hugging her again.

"Thanks Sook" she replied emotionally, holding back a few tears, relieved and unconsciously replaying a moment from her conversation with her mother in her mind.

Sookie pulled back in surprise and looked at her friend in shock.

"Your mom told you to stay away from me? Why would she do that? I thought Mae liked me"

Winnie sighed, and grumbled for the umpteenth time about having a best friend that was _impossible_ to keep secrets from.

"I don't know Sook, that's _why _we got in that fight. As soon as I came back in the shed, she grabbed me and told me I wasn't "allowed" to see you anymore. She said it wasn't _safe, _but she wouldn't tell me anything else. Just that "something is coming", whatever that means. Seriously Sook, I think she's gone crazy for real this time."

"Not _safe_? My God, I wonder what she saw…maybe she was right and you should-"

"Don't even think about it Sook! It's like you just said, _best friends are there for each other _and besides, I told you, I think she's really gone around the bend this time. All these herbs she drinks to _commune with the spirits _have finally scrambled her brain"

"She's your mom, don't say that. And we both know she isn't crazy, no matter what the town folk say. She's like _us_, if she believes there's danger coming; I'm inclined to believe her, Winnie."

The young dark-skinned girl sighed and kicked at the wall in resignation before facing her best friend with a fierce look in her eyes.

"I know Sook, I know. And that means that we stick close to each other for the next few days, at least until that alignment is over in two days. Mama might be right about the danger but if she thinks I'm just going to abandon you, she's got another thing coming…"

The blonde smiled and patted her best friend on the shoulder to express her gratitude.

"I'll just have to _listen_ a little more closely to see if I can catch anything for the next few days. Urgh. I _hate_ having to do that. It's bad enough when I'm trying_ not_ to listen, but actively doing it…"

"Are the headaches back again? I can brew you some more tonic if you need it-"

"No, no, it's not that. The headaches have actually gotten a lot better lately, I told you. And it's easier to block people out too. These past couple of weeks, it's starting to feel like I'm getting a real handle on it, I have no idea why _now_ though, I don't think I'm doing anything different"

"That's great Sook, you've been working so hard and it's finally paying off. We might even start talking about suitors now!"

"Woa, calm your horses there missy, you remind me of my mom or the old ladies at church. I'm not quite there yet"

"Ha! Sorry Sook, but still, this is great isn't it? It's what you've always wanted. So why doesn't it make you happy? And why are you so worried about checking out the town-folk? You've been listening to them your whole life"

"Because it's like I said, I've gotten _better_. But it goes _both _ways, you see. I can, like, go _deeper_ now. It's not just random thoughts or feelings anymore, but memories, hopes, dreams, nightmares…If I just focus on it, on that person and that thought, I can kind of…follow it? The memories, the feelings associated with it, those kinds of things. And…I _really _don't like it, it's…_too real_. It was easier before because I always reminded myself of what you keep telling me"

"People are their actions, not their thoughts" recited Winnie, remembering her younger-self telling that to a terrified six-year old Sookie after she ran away to "live in the forest" for the first time, fleeing the casual cruelty, selfishness and intolerance that she heard all the time.

"Exactly. So all of those evil thoughts from those supposedly "good people" that I hear all day, I just ignored them. I told myself that those people weren't _really_ like that, they just had bad thoughts every once in a while, like everyone else but they didn't actually _act_ on them. I couldn't hear any more and I was perfectly happy with that. That man didn't _really_ beat on his wife every night, that one hadn't _really_ killed innocents by the dozen during the war, that woman didn't _really_ want to poison her husband for the inheritance. It was just thoughts I kept telling myself, _not real_."

"Oh Sook…"

"But they _do_ Winnie, they _do _act on them. The better I get at reading, the more I understand them, the more I see what they _really _are, what they've _done_. I've got _so many_ secrets Winnie, such _horrible_ secrets. And every time I let my guard down and let them in, more and more of their filth comes pouring inside of me! And _every time_ there's someone new, someone that I Iiked or respected my entire life, and then I see their sins and they become just like everyone else…hypocrites, liars, all of them."

"I'm sorry Sook, I can't even imagine…But, not I'm not part of that _them_ you're talking about, I hope?"

"What? No silly, of course not. It's _us_ and _them_, just like always, isn't it?"

"Yeah…Yes it is Sook. Us against the world…Forever ok?"

"Forever"

§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§

Some time later, Sookie was skipping down the path on her way into town to pick up some bread and milk and to "listen" for potential danger like she'd promised Winnie. She'd finished all of her morning chores, talked a bit more with Winnie and promised to meet later today, said hello to her younger (by two years) brother Jed as he stumbled into the house, his eyes red with bags under them and smelling of ale and cheap perfume. Still, despite being hungover, tired and unwashed, her brother still looked good, a lot like his sister people always said, with their same blond hair and caramel eyes.

Jed had indeed been endowed with the same effortless beauty as his sister, this was the reason why he'd rarely spent a night at home since he "became a man", he'd never had trouble finding a "lady" to share a bed with for the night. But that was where the similarities ended, Jed wasn't _like her_: he got sick, couldn't hear other people's thoughts, didn't feel changes in the weather coming hours before they happened, none of it, Jed was _normal_. Sookie didn't know why but she had theories and suspicions, same as she did for the reasons behind her own "otherness".

Well, she actually had a lot more than a theory, Sookie was almost certain that she knew exactly why she was so different from everyone else, but she didn't know _for sure_. To know, she would have to bring up the subject with her mother and ask her for the truth point-blank, but Sookie knew she would never do that. The same way she knew that her mother, despite knowing perfectly well how different Sookie was and why, would never, ever tell her. There was guilt there and shame and a bit of regret and if that had been all there was, Sookie would have asked by now. But there was something else in the thoughts and memories of her mom's that she'd used to piece together her origins: _heartbreak_. A profound and indelible heartbreak that filled her mother with _such pain_ that Sooke knew neither of them would ever willingly bring it up (no matter how much Sookie wanted to). Her mother had loved and she had lost the love of her life. And it wasn't Jonas Stackhouse, the man that Sookie had called "papa" since she could talk, the man she was married to, and the man who _wasn't_ Sookie's father.

Sookie had been eight when she'd first consciously suspected the truth, and by age twelve, her suspicions had become certainties.

It had all started with her mother and because Sookie was…Sookie. The little girl had been hearing and listening to the thoughts of everyone around her since she could talk (although she quickly learned to _not_ _talk_ about it) and that naturally included her mother. In fact, seeing as her mama was her favorite person in the world and they were so often in close proximity, Sookie spent long periods of time listening to her mother's soothing inner voice, as gentle and generous on the inside as she was on the outside. But little Sookie's favorite parts of listening to her mother think was the few times when the older woman had the strangest and most beautiful thoughts. Otherworldly scenes filled with unearthly lights and beautiful people and feelings of such strength and intensity…At first, Sookie had naturally assumed that they were dreams, day-dreams, people did that she knew and such fantastical sights couldn't be _really real_; and the little girl had spent over a week drawing one such scene to give to her mother as a gift, thinking she'd be pleased.

But her mother had _not_ been pleased. Not at all. Her face lost all color as soon as she saw the drawing proudly presented by her daughter…and then she _slapped_ her. It was the first and only time her mom had ever hit her (she was always smacking Jed's bottom for getting mud everywhere, but _never_ her). Her mom had torn the drawing she had slaved over to pieces right before her eyes and yelled at her daughter about secrets and privacy; and the whole time Sookie could feel how angry, guilty, ashamed, terrified and in so much pain her mother was but she couldn't understand why or what she'd done that was so wrong. It was one of the worst memories of her life.

A few hours later, her mother had come to her room and held her close and apologized over and over as she softly brushed her hair. And Sookie had felt safe and loved again, but she never once mentioned the strange sights (memories she now knew) that her mother thought about ever again either.

But after that day, she started paying more attention to those thoughts when she would catch them, they often came either when her mom was staring at the forest out the window, or when she was looking at…her.

The most preeminent and recurrent of these thoughts were of a face. A beautiful face with laughing eyes of a man she'd never met, but felt like _she knew_.

Little by little, all of the stray thoughts, feelings and the (what she now understood) _memories_ not dreams, came together to tell a story.

A beautiful but sad story and one that concerned her very intimately.

It was a story that had started when her mother had been younger than Sookie was now (although, already married to Jonas Stackhouse) and happened only three miles from this very house: on the border of the little creek that ran through the neighboring forest.

Her mother had already been two-years married and was lamenting the fact that she hadn't yet born her husband a child. She didn't care so much about her husband if she was being honest, the man was a brute and a drunk, but Anna wanted _children_. She'd wanted children since she was a child herself. Her sister had been pregnant six months after getting married and was now expecting her second. She'd had an argument about this subject with her husband Jonas this morning and it was the first time he'd uttered the word she'd been too scared to even contemplate. _Barren_. He had said it cruelly and spitefully and it hit close enough to her own fears to bring her to tears. Her husband had concluded the argument by going to the tavern, as was his wont.

As for Anna, it was a very hot summer's day and she desperately needed to cool off so she left the house and headed for the woods, going deeper that she usually did (or was allowed to), in order to find a particular secluded little spot she'd found one day and never told anyone about with the intention of taking a dip in the nippy creek to cool off.

She had already been bathing in the blessedly cool creek in nothing more than a very modest white shift when she saw a strange flash of brilliant light and heard a sound behind her, and that was the moment her mother met the owner of _the face_. He was lying on his side by the small river, his beautiful face twisted in pain and his strange shimmering silk-like clothes inlaid with tiny jewels were stained with blood on one side, he looked like he might be dying.

Her mother didn't hesitate to rush out of the water towards the injured man, intent on helping him.

The rest of the meeting, like their many subsequent meetings, Sookie actually knew very little of. This wasn't the way people thought, they never recalled a memory from beginning to end in order like reading a book and without context it was very hard to understand sometimes (or it used to be anyway, she might be able to do it _now_ if she tried).

Feelings were easier, people remembered feelings far better than they did anything else. This was why, while she didn't know how exactly it happened, or what was said or done, she knew that her mother had kept on visiting that man and had fallen madly in love him. She knew plenty of little things and had memorized a few scraps of conversation but in truth, it really wasn't much.

Her mother not only didn't like to think about it because it was so painful to her, but Sookie had also eventually noticed that her mom was actually making a conscious effort not to think too much about that time when she was around her daughter.

And then, there were the thoughts and memories that Sookie actively tried to _avoid_, particularly with her mother, scenes that involved less and less clothing and talking, and a lot more of…something else. Of course that particular something ended up actually _creating_ her but that didn't mean she wanted to _see it_!

It had taken her an embarrassedly long time to put everything together and understand that the strange and beautiful man her mother kept thinking about was more than a fantasy, a dream or even just an old lover, he was her _real_ father.

And that was it, the secret her mother kept so tightly and the reason for her strangeness: her mother had an affair with another man and _that_ man was her true father. The fact that her mother had been with and gotten pregnant by a man that wasn't her husband wasn't actually all that of an earth-shaking secret (well it was for _her_ and it certainly wouldn't play well in church but Sookie personally knew five different women from that same church who had similar "experiences"). No, the real secret was that she suspected that her father _hadn't actually been a _man_ at all_. He'd been…something _other_. Like her. And all of her "peculiarities" must come from his side of the family, whatever it may be.

She looked like him, she knew, after having seen his face so many times in her mom's memories, but the really confusing part was…_so_ _did_ _Jed. _That was one aspect of the story she didn't know or understand. She wasn't sure of Jed's true parentage. On the one hand, he was normal so it would stand to reason that Jonas was his father, he was two years younger than her, it made sense. On the other hand, he looked a lot more like that face than he did Jonas, more and more so as he grew up. So, if they both had the same strange father, why was _she_ the only one that was "other"?

Seeing the town coming up in front of her, she realized how deep in her thoughts she must have been for the two-mile walk to have gone by in such a flash.

Inhaling deeply, she calmed her mind as much as she could, imagining a vast, completely still pond and herself, floating on the surface right in the center. This was how she imagined her mind: as calm and still water constantly being disturbed by things that had no business there dropping into it from above, she thought of them as rocks. And all she could do was keep the waters as calm and still as possible so that she, herself floating in the middle as she was, could remain calm and still as well. She couldn't stop the rocks, big or small, from dropping into the pond but she could control their ripples, at least a little; and mostly, she could control how she reacted to it. It didn't always work and she often felt like she drowning in a raging storm rather than floating gently on the surface in those moments when the thoughts became too much. The truth was that it wasn't really about _control_ and more about balance, equilibrium. Sometimes the current was very strong and the waves were high and yet she managed to simply "go with flow", her body rising and descending in concert with the massive waves but always keeping her head afloat. While other times, the tiniest of waves could take her by surprise and flip her over, sending her drowning and losing all shred of control.

But she was better now, she told herself as she affixed a wide and fake smile on her face, it was her usual "social mask", most people had one (although almost none of them seemed to realize that just about everyone else did too). _Into the breach…_

"Good morn, Mrs Stevenson. How fare you on this fine day?" she greeted the old widow in a pleasant voice, her smile almost real. She liked Mrs Stevenson, she was a good sort.

"Oh, hello Miss Stackhouse. I'm pleasant enough. But how are you my dear? We see you so rarely in town, it's a shame really. And your mother is well, I hope?" _Oh, it's that strange Stackhouse girl. Strange but quite lovely really, her and her brother both. Oh, that _boy_…if only I was thirty years younger, I would eat him whole._

"I'm well Mrs. Stevenson and mama also. The farm has just been very busy these last few months, you know, lots of work to do" Sookie answered, keeping her voice level, having long since gotten used to keeping her cool while embarrassed by what she _heard_. Besides, this was positively tame compared to a lot of people; and unfortunately, hearing women of all ages imagine (or remember) all sorts of scenarios with her brother was something she'd unwillingly gotten used to. It happened _a lot _after all. Frankly, she rather preferred it to the many men imagining scenarios involving _her_, that happened a lot too. It was just one more reason for her to avoid the town.

"Oh well, do say hello from me" _I'm _sure_ those two girls have a lot of work at that farm of theirs, what with Jonas Stackhouse always in the tavern, it's not like they get much help I'm sure_. _Two women, stuck working alone, for shame._ _Ale truly is the devil's drink…I should speak with Father Matthias again…_

"I will, have a good day" she answered cheerfully. She really _did_ like Mrs. Stevenson; she was sharp and had a good heart, even though most of the town thought her nothing more than a cantankerous old widow.

But soon enough, she reached the edges of the town and the number of mental dialogues steadily increased…_Time to face the good people of Bon Temps._

§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§

End chapter 1.

I have not read the books so this is based entirely on the show and actually some fanfiction that I read about the books lol. But, even if I sometime veer into AU or book theory, the guiding line remains the show.

This was meant to go much further plot-wise but I have this nasty tendency to end up making way too big chapter, so I'm just publishing the "proofed" (more or less) part of my story.

I have purposefully not indicated any secondary characters. And while ships will play a big role, it won't be the whole story either.

This was just something I had clogging my hard drive so I figured I might as well publish it as is and let you guys tell me what you think.

PS: Big reveal: it eventually jumps to the present.


End file.
